Ratings for TBBT continue to be VERY strong, to the point where it's usually the highest or second highest rated comedy every week. It's also been pre-renewed for another season or two already.

The Big Bang Theory is filmed before a live studio audience. There is no laugh track used. The laughter you hear is real people laughing at the actual show. So let's not have the laugh track argument in the thread ever again, thank you!

All the images below were taken from Big Bang Sheldon or somewhere else on tumblr and I didn't make any of them.

THE GUYS

Johnny Galecki plays Leonard Hofstadler, who is probably the most "Normal" of the nerds. Leonard is a physicist and usually the voice of reason of the guys. In the first two seasons, Leonard was in love with the hot new neighbor across the hall, Penny. In season 3, Leonard and Penny were in a real relationship, but near the end of season 3 they were then broken up by Evil Wil Wheaton (played by Wil Wheaton) so Wil could win a bowling match. Leonard wanted to get back together with Penny, but after he accepted that it wasn't going to happen, near the beginning of season 4 started dating Raj's sister, Priya. Priya moved back to India, cheated on Leonard, and they broke up.

Late in season 5, Penny and Leonard decided to try a "Beta" relationship and reported all bugs in the relationship. Eventually, they were officially dating again.

Last season, Penny finally said yes, and Leonard and Penny were engaged.

Jim Parsons plays Sheldon Cooper. Sheldon is Leonard's roommate, a brilliant physicist and the smartest of them all. He's also the most socially inept, and many episodes revolve around Sheldon's quirks, social fallacies, and learning how to function in normal society. At the end of season 3, Raj and Howard signed Sheldon up for a dating service as a joke, but amazingly, they found the actual perfect girl for Sheldon, Amy Farrah-Fowler. Season four had Sheldon and Amy exploring their non-relationship. In season 5, Amy and Sheldon signed a relationship contract and he officially asked Amy to be his girlfriend.

At the end of last season, after quitting his job and becoming upset at the ideat that Leonard would want to live with Penny without him, Sheldon decided to run off and travel on his own for awhile. So, presumably he's been off doing that all summer.

Simon Helburg plays Howard Wolowitz. Howard is an Engineer and "only" has a Masters degree, a fact which often gets him razzed on by the other geniuses, even though he designs parts for NASA that are used on space shuttles. Wolowitz lives with his controlling, loud mother, who is never seen but often heard. Howard previously had a relationship with Leslie Winkle, but at the end of season three was dating, then broke up with one of Penny's Co-workers, Bernadette. At the end of season 5, Howard both married Bernadette, and got selected by NASA to go into space.

Howard spent the first several episodes of season 6 in space, and then took a few more episodes to readjust to life on Earth. His mother was injured near the end of last year and he and Bernadette temporarily moved in with her, until Stuart became her caregiver.

Kunal Nayyar plays Rajesh Koothrapalli. Raj is an astrophysicist who has used to have a crippling fear of speaking to women, he'd literally freezes up and any communication has to be done by whispering in a male friend's ear. Penny is particularly kind to Raj, trying to help him overcome his phobia. Raj has his own apartment, as his parents live in India and he often is seen speaking to them over webcam. Raj and Penny once had a drunken liason which almost ended in sex, but not quite. Raj is also possibly bisexual but won't admit it to himself.

Raj has FINALLY overcame his inability to speak to women unless drunk, so, at least he's got that going for him. Raj found a girlfriend named Emily at the end of last season.

THE GIRLS

Kaley Cuoco plays Penny. We don't know Penny's last name. Penny lives across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon. Penny is an aspiring actress, though she spends most of her days working at the Cheesecake Factory. Penny is of average intelligence, but she's able to hold her own around the four guys, and they all like and respect her. Penny is by far the most normal person in the group, though their nerdiness has started to rub off on her, just as she's trying to get them to be a little less socially inept. In season 5, Penny and Leonard started dating again, and Penny rejected Leonard's proposal but they stayed together in the end.

Besides getting engaged to Leonard, Penny also quit her job at the Cheesecake factory last season to pursue acting full time.

Mayim Bialik plays Amy Farrah-Fowler. Amy is Sheldon's girlfriend, and a brilliant neurobiologist. They met on a dating site when Raj and Howard signed him up as a joke, and agreed to pretend to date to get other people off their backs. Amy is as socially stinted as Sheldon, but is trying hard to learn to be less socially awkward. She considers Penny to be her "bestie" (BFF) and is also close with Bernadette. In season 5, Amy finally got Sheldon to agree to be her actual boyfriend, and started on a campaign to get Sheldon to want to actually sleep with her, now that they're official. That didn't happen in season 6, although they did share one actually passionate kiss.

Melissa Rauch plays Bernadette Wolowitz (previously Rostenkowski). Bernadette is Penny's friend from when she worked at the Cheesecake Factory, but now is a microbiologist. Bernadette isn't very geeky, though she is both very smart and sometimes ditzy. Bernadette and Howard were dating in season 3, then broke up offscreen, and got back together early in season 4, and near the end of season 4 got engaged. She and Howard got married at the end of season 5.

Nowadays, Howard and Bernadette's storylines usually center around being newlyweds.

Amy and Bernadette are considered to be "regulars" but are not full cast members. They'll be in the majority of episodes in the season, but their names are only in the credits when they'll be in the episode.

Other important characters:
Galecki's former Roseanne castmate Laurie Metcalf will occasionally pop up as Sheldon's Bible-thumping but usually kind and well meaning mother.

Christine Baranski has shown up a few times as Leonard's mother. She's much closer with Sheldon than Leonard.

Leslie Winkle, played by fellow Rosanne alumn Sara Gilbert, was a recurring character in the first few seasons but hasn't shown up in like 4 or 5 seasons so, she might never be heard from again.

Wil Wheaton plays an assholeish version of himself, usually referred to as Evil Wil Wheaton, outside the show, though in the last couple of seasons he's on much friendlier terms with the guys, to the point of even giving Sheldon advice. He and Penny starred in a D-list slasher flick together last season.

Stuart is the owner of the comic/gaming shop the guys hang out at. He briefly dated Penny in season 2 and is friends with Wil Wheaton, though the group also likes him. He now lives with and takes care of Howard's mother after the comic book shop burned down at the end of last season.

And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

The Locomotion Interruption

Amy and Leonard take a surprise road trip to Arizona to retrieve Sheldon, while Penny goes on a job interview at Bernadette's company, and Howard has problems wrapping his head around Stuart's relationship with Mrs. Wolowitz.

The Junior Professor Solution

Sheldon is ordered to teach a class, and the gang is surprised when Howard signs up to take it; and tensions between Penny and Bernadette afford Amy an opportunity to play one against the other.

I watched the first 15 minutes of this new season, and I'm calling it quits. gently caress it, I'm done with the whole series. I don't give a poo poo about any of these characters. I don't know how or why I've lasted this long watching the show, but I'm done with this garbage. I can't even get myself to hate-watch this show, every 5 seconds it is a cringeworthy joke one right after the other. When I start a series, I always commit to it until it's finale, except this is the first time I'm not doing that. Godspeed goons.

I was about to say that this is an insane thing to do, but then I remembered I watched all of How I Met Your Mother... so yeah, I sympathise. With BBT I have no expectations from it though, so I'll just keep watching it, and maybe by s23 Sheldon will have touched Amy's boob over her sweater or something.

We've put this on in the background while we eat dinner, just because it's marginally better than the news being on and it's not as deep or needs as much attention as a show that's actually interesting.

Basically, i'm saying it's background noise.

Who the gently caress are these people providing the laugh track? Have they not seen an actual funny show?

Sheldon does now not even resemble a human being. If someone acted like that in real life both when they had their stuff stolen and when they were supposed to have a professor/teaching job they would be institutionalized. And his friends keep enabling him.

Apparently I hadn't finished last season, so I rewatched starting with episode 19 where Sheldon spends the entire episode agonizing over whether to get the Xbox One or PS4, paralyzed by his inability to decide between the two. I think people said his obsessiveness was completely unrealistic.

I agreed that it was unrealistic but because Sheldon didn't obsess enough.

Sheldon does now not even resemble a human being. If someone acted like that in real life both when they had their stuff stolen and when they were supposed to have a professor/teaching job they would be institutionalized. And his friends keep enabling him.

It would have been better if he had been institutionalized for 90 days then called Leonard to get him out when they found out he was really a professor.

We've put this on in the background while we eat dinner, just because it's marginally better than the news being on and it's not as deep or needs as much attention as a show that's actually interesting.

Basically, i'm saying it's background noise.

Who the gently caress are these people providing the laugh track? Have they not seen an actual funny show?

There were a few times, such as Bernadette's "...and you're not his father" that were not even funny, but there was laughter when her line ended. Maybe there's no laugh track and it's a live audience but their responses are juiced in some way.

For a season premiere there was nothing new (besides Penny's haircut and Steven Root's cameo) so I can't even see where the show will be going now.
The only surprise was finding out that Penny landed the job as a pharma rep, which is kinda hard to believe since she has no training, no background, no contacts and no experience relating to that field at all.

Sheldon does now not even resemble a human being. If someone acted like that in real life both when they had their stuff stolen and when they were supposed to have a professor/teaching job they would be institutionalized. And his friends keep enabling him.

This was not the first time he's gone pantsless in public. I'm surprised he hasn't already been labelled a sex offender.
This also wasn't even the first time Sheldon was robbed when taking the train. You'd think a "genius" would learn from past mistakes! Or that the writers of a multi-million dollar hit comedy show could come up with new ideas for a new season.

Binary Logic fucked around with this message at Sep 24, 2014 around 18:41

Maybe there's no laugh track and it's a live audience but their responses are juiced in some way.

Yeah, they "sweeten" the live audience laughter, which makes their stand against using a laugh track a purely academic one. Since they're doing that, I can't figure why they don't just cut out the audience tittering at setup lines.

The only surprise was finding out that Penny landed the job as a pharma rep, which is kinda hard to believe since she has no training, no background, no contacts and no experience relating to that field at all.

This wasn't actually that far fetched. Everything Bernadette said about Penny getting the job is basically what a pharma sales rep is. Hot blond who can mostly read a power point and flirt with male doctors to get them to buy something? That's a pharma sales rep right there.

Sheldon does now not even resemble a human being. If someone acted like that in real life both when they had their stuff stolen and when they were supposed to have a professor/teaching job they would be institutionalized. And his friends keep enabling him.

You've never met a true autistic sperg in real life? I find the Sheldon character to be an incredibly accurate representation of a real life sperg. The realism is one of the best part of the show in my opinion. I've known many Sheldons in real life. They work all over Silicon Valley.

You've never met a true autistic sperg in real life? I find the Sheldon character to be an incredibly accurate representation of a real life sperg. The realism is one of the best part of the show in my opinion. I've known many Sheldons in real life. They work all over Silicon Valley.

Hasn't there been a lot of ink spilled about how Sheldon is one of the best representation s of a functioning autistic person on TV.

This might be because of the HUUUUUGE autism lobby and their ability to write angry letters at the drop of a hat (think Jenny Mcarthy). The writers probably just say this to avoid ruffling any feathers.

Sheldon is clearly a high functioning autistic, and without a doubt the most accurate depiction of one I've ever seen on TV.

The only surprise was finding out that Penny landed the job as a pharma rep, which is kinda hard to believe since she has no training, no background, no contacts and no experience relating to that field at all.

She got the job because the HR guy is afraid of Bernadette and he didn't want to piss her off.

This might be because of the HUUUUUGE autism lobby and their ability to write angry letters at the drop of a hat (think Jenny Mcarthy). The writers probably just say this to avoid ruffling any feathers.

Sheldon is clearly a high functioning autistic, and without a doubt the most accurate depiction of one I've ever seen on TV.

Wow, if thats what autistic people are like in real life I'm glad I don't have interactions with many. I'm a pretty laid back guy, now, but I would deck someone that randomly spoke to me like that.

TV ones, even. Karen Gillan's character on Selfie is a pharmaceutical sales rep.

Thanks. Thought she was the best part of Doctor Who when she was on it, and had no idea about this new series. It's kinda cute. Look forward to scenes of that character pitching a new medicine to a doctor. "Buy this and your clients will take it and be like, 'this is coolio', smiley gif el oh el ."

The likelihood of meeting someone that really has autism is fairly low. Lots of kids diagnosted with it are too young to tell and grow out of it. The rest are self described internet weirdos.

For the families of people with real autism, Sheldon emotional growth and social skills is the goal.

I do not believe there is any intention to portray Sheldon as autistic but if he was, his friends are not helping him at all since they are enablers and always give in and do whatever he wants.

Mister Kingdom posted:

She got the job because the HR guy is afraid of Bernadette and he didn't want to piss her off.

This only makes sense in the Chuck Lorre universe.
However it would be funny if Penny turns out to be a drug-peddling savant who somehow outsells Bernadette, the genius research microbiologist who was recruited to be a sales rep.

Thanks. Thought she was the best part of Doctor Who when she was on it, and had no idea about this new series. It's kinda cute. Look forward to scenes of that character pitching a new medicine to a doctor. "Buy this and your clients will take it and be like, 'this is coolio', smiley gif el oh el ."

I do not believe there is any intention to portray Sheldon as autistic but if he was, his friends are not helping him at all since they are enablers and always give in and do whatever he wants.

This only makes sense in the Chuck Lorre universe.
However it would be funny if Penny turns out to be a drug-peddling savant who somehow outsells Bernadette, the genius research microbiologist who was recruited to be a sales rep.

Bernadette's a sales rep? Since when? I thought she worked in the lab developing the drugs

Bernadette's a sales rep? Since when? I thought she worked in the lab developing the drugs

She does. It's even mentioned in Penny's interview that Bernadette is developing a drug because Root was too scared to tell her it was shelved.

I watched seasons 1 and 2 again recently and I'd forgotten how much more of a friend he used to be to Leonard. Now he's just wacky and loud. I miss the quieter, actually intelligent Sheldon. If I started watching the show now the only way to know Sheldon is smart is because people say he is. They do this weird thing of treating him like a dog sometimes now and it's soo unfunny.